Razor-close game. Numerous early hits and a kill against my front-line infantry. Fortunately, I started the game with three multi-section cards, and was able to withdraw two weakened units.

In the middle game, I got to a 5-2 lead, but had an Armor Assault and a Right card that combined for 2-for-23 against the Panzers. The German armor came back against the 1-fig and 2-fig infantries I had retreated, but they fell one figure short of the necessary double-kill. I Infantry-Assaulted against the Panzers, and got lucky with my first roll.

A fair scrap ... with the action concentrated on both flanks, and nothing happening through the middle ..

Gunhawk always managed to stay 1 or 2 medals ahead, and that proved to be the situation throughout with his 6th medal being won in some style with 4 allied units surrounding 1 lone axis unit, who at that point looked slightly out of his depth!

It's hotting up in the Axis league table ... with Jesse scoring a maximum 36 medals, only David can possible match his score by winning his 6th and final game ... but then it will all come down to medals lost ... !

Currently, Jesse has conceded 20 medals after 6 games, David has conceded 17, with a game to go !

If david can win 6-2 or better, the top spot is his ! 6-3 and it will go to a tie breaker ... 6-4 or worse and the honours go to Jesse!

Morgiliath (axis) can't win the league, but with three games to go against Sam, Eric and Garrett, he will definitely have a say on who out of the allies wins their group ...

All this to say, we are only 4 matches away from completing the group phase and discovering who is going to meet in the final .. !

A fair scrap ... with the action concentrated on both flanks, and nothing happening through the middle ..

Gunhawk always managed to stay 1 or 2 medals ahead, and that proved to be the situation throughout with his 6th medal being won in some style with 4 allied units surrounding 1 lone axis unit, who at that point looked slightly out of his depth!

Well done gunhawk .. thanks for playing in the tournament..

Jim

Thanks for doing the "write up". My wife was hurrying me to go out. I wanted to chat more, but you know the drill. (-: Anyway, Toulon will most likely be an Allied victory if the Axis artillery is destroyed, otherwise it can be a tough row to hoe without good Allied right flank cards. I started the game with "Artillery Barrage", "Their Finest Hour", a left flank card and a couple of right flank cards. Then I was dealt an "Airpower" and more left and right flank cards. I couldn't ask for more. Once the artillery was taken out I could take my time and not take chances, which is why I didn't overrun in situations that would have left me in danger of a "Close Assault" from Axis Infantry from the woods. So if you wanted a shot at my Tanks you had to come out of the woods. As some of my opponents will tell you, I am a *very* cautious player. (-: My biggest mistake was to forget to move my units during one turn and skipped right to "battle", but I was talking to my wife and trying to chat with you and think at the same time. So I screwed the pooch. LOL. Luckily, it was a recoverable error.

Anyway, thanks *very* much for running the tournament. It was a lot of fun. (-:

Both sides started very carefully, by withdrawing all available infantry to forests and placing tanks on hills.

Then suddenly my artillery was destroyed. 3 dice, 2 hits. Off it went in a puff of smoke.

So I played a dig-in. And then I finally had some center cards, as opposed to my opponent, who had to salvage what he could with a counterattack. With an all-out centerattack there was not much really he could do.

I found David online this afternoon and he was just finishing up a game and said he couldn't play right now. That was a little deflating as I was ready to go. I hope to see him tonight(EST) to determine the Axis champion. Sam, you put too much pressure on me. I'm trying not to 'choke'. Gag Gag.

Morgaliath just destroyed me at Tunisia 6-2. This has been a bad weekend for me as I don't think I've won a game online and my college, Pittsburgh, blew the basketball game last night.

well, allied team, i have good news and bad news. the bad news for Nygaard, Phread, and Sam is that i didn't get shutout by Morgiliath at sidi omar. the good news for Looneyllama is that while i battered the axis, leaving 3 1-figure units on the board at game's end, the axis armor rolled right through my center for a quick 6-2 victory.

Final result:
Fixture 1: Dug in at Sidi Omar

Morgiliath (axis) 6 d. Mochihead (allies) 2

if my calculations are correct, the Looneyllama vs David match at Montelimar will decide everyone's fate.

All eric needs is 2 medals to win the allied side (I believe he owns the tiebreaker with me).

David needs to win and keep eric to 2 medals to win axis outright.

So my only hope is for David to win 6-1 or 6-0. 4 allied victories at Montelimar to date make this seem unlikely, although Jesse did prove that decisive Axis victory is possible.

This is going to be good! Thanks everyone, and Jim especially for a fun tourney.

This is a very interesting outcome for the Allies. Did anybody notice that, except for Loonylama who still has play his last game, there is only a difference of 3 medals between the highest and lowest number of medals won? That's pretty close.

Axis started very strong with 1 inf. kill on the first turn. He quickly followed up these kills with an armor assault on my two advanced armor units. This was the turning point as he only got one hit on each of the higher elevated units. The Allies also immediately played an armor assault and killed one unit and reduced the other to one figure with 4 dice rolls. The axis then tried to call for the mechanics but they must have gotten lost in the woods as no help arrived (yep, no tank or star rolls with 5 dice!). I finished off his tank unit with a recon one card. He used one also to kill a depleted inf unit. Direct from headquarters activated enough units and with exceptional rolls to complete the victory.

I"ve played a lot of games this weekend and have gotten shellacked. All my luck turned for the best this game. Thanks to everyone for playing. This tournament made it so much more fun to play these scenarios. It was especially enjoyable with all you guys. Hope to do it again soon! OH, and thanks Jim for setting it up!

The FINAL, Into the Cauldron, will therefore be played out between Jesse and Eric over two matches, switching sides. In the event of a tie, Jesse will win as he has picked up the most medals in the group phase!

Well played everyone, thanks for making it such a fun tourney, and thanks too for your support throughout ... it's been an absolute pleasure to put together and watch unfold, I've appreciated reading the AAR's, and valued Andy's scoreboard keeping us all up to date ... cheers Andy.

Despite losing EVERY game, (most of them went to the wire I'll have you know), I thoroughly enjoyed playing, and getting to meet new friends!

It's been a relatively easy format to put together, I think the rules are nice and simple, but I'd be keen to know how other people found playing with them. Did it change your approach/style? Did it inspire other ideas for tourney's ? All in all, I think having something like this to play the scenarios with really adds to the gameplay .. Along with the simple campaign variant that Jesse and I are currently almost a third of the way thru ...
(see here for details: http://www.daysofwonder.com/en/msg/?th=21617&start=0

Now, who do i cheer for in the final .. my opponent Eric, or my .. opponent Jesse ????

Good luck Gents ...
Enjoy the game !

Jim

nb. Morgiliath and David, I have tied you for 2nd place (as there is nothing between you). The tie-breaker is really only necessary to determine the winner of the group ... however if you wish to play the Airfield, to determine who drops to 3rd then go right ahead!

Thanks again to Jim for organizing the tournament and to Andy for keeping up with the results. It was a lot of fun, although i didn't do as well as I had hoped.

I did find myself playing differently as I needed to go after medals. As for suggestions, I would like for the first criteria to be wins and losses. I think that the most important thing should be to win the scenario, instead of just piling up medals. After that medals and the medal differential can be used to break ties. Just my opinion...

I'm sure that there were some DoW official tournament guidelines once upon a time, but I can't find them anywhere. I'll have to check the files at home.

I'm also just wondering how you chose the scenarios... Maybe it would be better to have the more balanced scenarios, instead of the ones to six medals. I'm not sure that it would matter, but I was wondering about that.

In any case, I just insert those comments since you asked about feedback. It was great fun and I really appreciate you taking the initiative to run this. I hope to participate in the future.

Thanks to all my opponents also -- you were all gracious and sporting which makes it very enjoyable.

Thanks again to Jim for organizing the tournament and to Andy for keeping up with the results. It was a lot of fun, although i didn't do as well as I had hoped.

I did find myself playing differently as I needed to go after medals. As for suggestions, I would like for the first criteria to be wins and losses. I think that the most important thing should be to win the scenario, instead of just piling up medals. After that medals and the medal differential can be used to break ties. Just my opinion...

I'm sure that there were some DoW official tournament guidelines once upon a time, but I can't find them anywhere. I'll have to check the files at home.

I'm also just wondering how you chose the scenarios... Maybe it would be better to have the more balanced scenarios, instead of the ones to six medals. I'm not sure that it would matter, but I was wondering about that.

In any case, I just insert those comments since you asked about feedback. It was great fun and I really appreciate you taking the initiative to run this. I hope to participate in the future.

Thanks to all my opponents also -- you were all gracious and sporting which makes it very enjoyable.

Geoff

Thanks Geoff,

It would be fun to work on the basis of wins/losses counting foremost to see how/if that creates a difference in approach to playing ...

The way it was set up this time, it really didn't matter about the even-ness of the scenarios. This is a strength using this format. Even if we had six scenarios that were heavily loaded towards one nation, it wouldn't affect the group phase, because each person is competing against their own nation. Not against the other nation.

So, for example, I could have picked 6 scenarios that all seriously favour the allies .. it would make no difference for the Axis, as victories are not what is being counted, its simply about out-performing your fellow Axis team-mates on those particular 'Allied favoured' scenarios. You all play the same scenarios, and you're being marked on how well you perform, not how many wins you secure. (In this example however, you wouldn't be able to use 'medals won' as a tiebreaker in the final, as that would be unfair to the Axis finalist.)

If you create a tourney using a wins for/against as being the most important criteria, then you would have to be much more balanced with the scenarios you pick ... OR, you have to play through the scenarios as both Axis AND Allies.

The way we played really meant you were fighting in a 'team', against a common enemy, albeit as an individual (if that's possible lol).

The reason why I picked the scenarios we played?

Quite simply ... they were the ones which offered

A) the MOST medals (ie 6)
and B) they were scenarios which had no worse than a 30% difference between being on the winning/losing side (I think?) (Maybe one was more severe than that, Tunisia is 38%, Toulon is about 30%, but certainly 4 of the scenarios were reasonably 'close' in that respect). However, as mentioned above, unbalanced scenarios are not a problem using this format.

This meant that
A) we had LOTS of medals flying around to sort the men from the boys... useful with only 6 fixtures ..
and B) people were going to pick up at least a few victories along the way, which is always good for morale ...

Please note however, my personal score! (0/6) !!
But I'm still learning lots about the game ... lol

>>It's been a relatively easy format to put together, I think the rules are nice and simple, but I'd be keen to know how other people found playing with them. Did it change your approach/style?<<

I think that the format is OK, but I think it should be more important to win battles than gain medals, so I would change the heirarchy to:

The number of games won, with ties broken by the number of medals won, with ties broken by the number of medals lost.

Note that I would have been in last place either way, so I have no sinister motive for the change. (-:

Ed

I'm easy on both formats ... I suspect the above format Ed and Geoff mention is the one most widely used, and probably proposed originally by DoW ... it was fun to try something different, but no reason why the usual parameters could be used next time ...

nb. The choice of scenarios is more crucial if you are playing a league with positions based on games won/lost

I'm easy on both formats ... I suspect the above format Ed and Geoff mention is the one most widely used, and probably proposed originally by DoW ... it was fun to try something different, but no reason why the usual parameters could be used next time ...

nb. The choice of scenarios is more crucial if you are playing a league with positions based on games won/lost

I'm not sure the choice of scenarios is any more crucial, since you are still competing against the other Axis and/or Allies players. So you are all still playing the same six battles. There are just different criteria for choosing the battles.

We'll definitely want the most balanced scenarios though, instead of the ones with six medals. You'll not want to use Pointe-du Hoc, Gallabat, Juno Beach, and Arnhem as none of the axis players will win any matches.

Having even battles will also help to eliminate the disparity of playing more skilled generals on a certain battle. Under the current format, there is an advantage to playing a more skilled general in a more random scenario. I have a much better chance to get medals against a great general at Montelimar than I do at Tunisia. I'm not sure how big of an effect this has on things, but it does exist.

But there is a lot of luck inherent to Memoir, so going to extraordinary lengths to eliminate these disparities is most likely not worth the effort.

I'm looking forward to competing again...as well as knowing who wins the overall competition. Too bad there is no way to watch...

I completely agree with Jim on that. The medal-counts approach added great flavor to the games, as did the competition within the group. Therefore winning a game is not as important, as going down taking a lot of enemy with you (Jaykay's 0 victories that way beat 2 by Frankeytje (btw, I need to check your nick everytime I type it ).

But gentlemen, be on alert, I will be concocting something for you soon

I completely agree with Jim on that. The medal-counts approach added great flavor to the games, as did the competition within the group. Therefore winning a game is not as important, as going down taking a lot of enemy with you (Jaykay's 0 victories that way beat 2 by Frankeytje (btw, I need to check your nick everytime I type it ).

But gentlemen, be on alert, I will be concocting something for you soon

I have to agree with Geoff that there's so much luck involved in M44 that "going to extraordinary lengths to eliminate these disparities is most likely not worth the effort". I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel here. So either way is fine with me. It just seemed to make more sense to me to want to win more battles than to gain more medals. I think that since we're all competent players it's always going to be pretty close one way or the other and it will come down to the number of medals anyhow, and as I pointed out in another post there was a very small difference in the number of medals gained by each player on the Allied side. So little that just a couple of medals won or lost would have radically changed the finishing order. So I guess it's best to not to worry about it much and just do what's easiest and have fun. (-:

It's truly amazing that the competition was over in one week from signup to completion of the first round. It's a testament to everyone's enthusiasm and fine scheduling abilities. (Or maybe that we all have no lives )

News Flash! The final battle has been delayed due to weather. Not really. Due to time differential and work schedules Ras and I can't meet until Saturday morning unless we play at 2 or 3 A.M. I'll be online this week to practice Into the Cauldron. I've only played it once. Any games from you guys would be appreciated. Be real quiet about this and don't tell Ras that I'm practicing.

Medals won vs games won? I've always played in tournaments based on games won, but I know that the French use medals for their tournaments. I thought it worked fine. Yes, it did affect my thought processes.

Selection of scenarios? All being 6 medals was important, so every game would have equal weight. I thought Jim's particular selections were fine. Might you or I have chosen a couple of different ones? Perhaps, but none of these were clearly bad. When we have more scenarios available, organizers will have more to choose from. (One exception: I find Sidi Rezegh Airfield to have far too much luck. I definitely would have chosen a different tiebreaker. )

Single games vs matches? Given the Axis vs Allies format, this worked out fine. Actually, I found that it was easy to squeeze single games into my schedule.

Ras, did you break my Enigma Machine? Do you have MI5 working for you? I guess now I won't be able to sneak up on you. I'll just have to use my superior weaponry to prevail.

Anyway, I thought the format was terrific, though I have never participated in any other tournaments. I obviously played to win each scenario but if you know you're going to lose one, I just didn't give up when a medal or two could be important. It made the games interesting until the end. In the future, I think I would like this format better than just wins, but I would enthusiastically play either way.